Return to Transcripts main page
CNN Live At Daybreak
Lessons Learned From Beirut
Aired October 23, 2003 - 05:34 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Now to Lebanon, where 20 years ago today terrorists drove a truck loaded with explosives into the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut. The blast took 242 lives and created fallout that continues today.
CNN Beirut bureau chief Brent Sadler has a look at the lessons learned.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BRENT SADLER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Sickening images of dead American Marines, blown up in Beirut during Lebanon's civil war 20 years ago. They served as peacekeepers, but some Marines felt trapped in a cauldron of chaos and hate. Scrawling their thoughts on this wall, blasted by the bomb.
NICHOLAS BLANDFORD, "CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR": It was a devastating strike, the largest non-nuclear explosion since the Second World War, the largest loss of Marine life since the Second World War.
SADLER: And, like the deadly suicide bombing of the U.S. Embassy, also in Beirut, just six months earlier, a blueprint for two decades of evolving tactics in terror.
WALID JUMBLATI, LEBANESE DRUZE LEADER: Well, it's the available weapon for the poor against the mighty rich. It's what's happening now in Israel, in Palestine, in Iraq.
SADLER: A weapon, claims this scholar, that's designed to cause shock and rage, and to force a change in U.S. policy, as in Lebanon, she says, with the subsequent withdrawal of U.S. troops.
JUDITH HARID, POLITICAL SCIENCE PROFESSOR: Maximum impact, maximum demonstrated lesson, you know, how easy it was to deal a blow to the greatest power on earth.
SADLER: Her Lebanese husband, who helped Marines in rescue efforts after the explosion, says it's a lesson that's unlikely to be forgotten.
ANTUN HARID, EYEWITNESS: Just dead, dead bodies wherever you looked. And rubble all over the place.
SADLER: The U.S. holds Iran and what it calls Hezbollah terrorists responsible for both the Marines and embassy carnage. Today, though, Hezbollah is an influential political party in Lebanon, collecting donations in front of an American fast food outlet every week in a city where U.S. interests are still closely guarded. All traces of the Marine barracks attack have vanished beneath these buildings in a new airport complex.
(on camera): As for the old U.S. Embassy bomb site on Beirut's seafront, it's been turned into a car park. U.S. diplomats now work out of a fortress like compound outside the city, for security reasons.
(voice-over): One of many lessons learned from those deadly days.
Brent Sadler, CNN, Beirut.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired October 23, 2003 - 05:34 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Now to Lebanon, where 20 years ago today terrorists drove a truck loaded with explosives into the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut. The blast took 242 lives and created fallout that continues today.
CNN Beirut bureau chief Brent Sadler has a look at the lessons learned.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BRENT SADLER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Sickening images of dead American Marines, blown up in Beirut during Lebanon's civil war 20 years ago. They served as peacekeepers, but some Marines felt trapped in a cauldron of chaos and hate. Scrawling their thoughts on this wall, blasted by the bomb.
NICHOLAS BLANDFORD, "CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR": It was a devastating strike, the largest non-nuclear explosion since the Second World War, the largest loss of Marine life since the Second World War.
SADLER: And, like the deadly suicide bombing of the U.S. Embassy, also in Beirut, just six months earlier, a blueprint for two decades of evolving tactics in terror.
WALID JUMBLATI, LEBANESE DRUZE LEADER: Well, it's the available weapon for the poor against the mighty rich. It's what's happening now in Israel, in Palestine, in Iraq.
SADLER: A weapon, claims this scholar, that's designed to cause shock and rage, and to force a change in U.S. policy, as in Lebanon, she says, with the subsequent withdrawal of U.S. troops.
JUDITH HARID, POLITICAL SCIENCE PROFESSOR: Maximum impact, maximum demonstrated lesson, you know, how easy it was to deal a blow to the greatest power on earth.
SADLER: Her Lebanese husband, who helped Marines in rescue efforts after the explosion, says it's a lesson that's unlikely to be forgotten.
ANTUN HARID, EYEWITNESS: Just dead, dead bodies wherever you looked. And rubble all over the place.
SADLER: The U.S. holds Iran and what it calls Hezbollah terrorists responsible for both the Marines and embassy carnage. Today, though, Hezbollah is an influential political party in Lebanon, collecting donations in front of an American fast food outlet every week in a city where U.S. interests are still closely guarded. All traces of the Marine barracks attack have vanished beneath these buildings in a new airport complex.
(on camera): As for the old U.S. Embassy bomb site on Beirut's seafront, it's been turned into a car park. U.S. diplomats now work out of a fortress like compound outside the city, for security reasons.
(voice-over): One of many lessons learned from those deadly days.
Brent Sadler, CNN, Beirut.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
